Video Talk by Joseph Gall: Early History of Microscopy

Joseph Gall takes us through the history of early microscopes and the discovery of the cell. Compound microscopes were invented alongside the telescope in the 17th century; however these microscopes were not widely used until the late 19th century due to optical aberrations. In the meantime, simple microscopes were used throughout the 1700s and 1800s to make major discoveries in biology, including the first descriptions of the nucleus, cilia, cells, bacteria, and protozoans. Once optics improved in the mid to late 1800s, compound microscopes were used to discover chromosomes, mitosis, and other cellular structures.